ZeroReverse
by LeonaWriter
Summary: The androids and robots of the Westworld Japan Theme Park were not meant to malfunction. And yet, they did - and still were, if less frequently. It became known as the Zero Reverse phenomenon. Not every affected android was a danger, but all the same - many thought that none, not any, were safe. Crossover with the 1973 movie. Warnings for violence.
1. Chapter 1

_It is often thought that there were two sides to the Zero Reverse phenomenon._

_..._

Two scientists stood over their work, the result of many days, hours, weeks even, of hard work. Wires were still visible; some because the last procedures hadn't yet been completed and the 'skin' not yet grafted on. Yet the systems all seemed to be in order; the illusion of a heartbeat could be created, if necessary. A ventilation system had been worked in from the most recent upgrades to the commercial bots. Other aspects were from upgrades that hadn't even reached the public models yet.

A spare few wires were still attached to the surrounding computers, sending data back and forth. Tense smiles, short moments, one hand touching another for just a moment.

"Almost done," one would say. "Almost ready."

Just a few more days.

Just a few days, and the skin was grafted on, the last few touches given to the still-lifeless eyes. Blue, they'd decided. The eyes would be blue.

They gave the bot two more days to become accustomed to the skin grafts and the programmed codes which would denote 'cold' and 'warm', 'soft' and 'hard'.

The day after, they attached the rest of the scalp, with the hair pre-designed and due to start growing at a slightly more-than-human rate until it reached a natural, if planned for, length and style.

"He'll have to wake up, soon," they were now saying. "Or we won't know if any of it works."

All of the tests ran back positively. Nothing was wrong. Randomisation was allowed, and variables were given. As was leniency in 'thought', regardless of what that might be to a bot.

One by one, all of the wires were removed apart from two or three, just enough to make sure that things were running smoothly, and both read the data to make sure of it and also be able to draw a halt to all proceedings should the need arise.

The Westworld built just out there, right on their doorstep, might have many androids and robots, ready for use by the public, ready to play out their parts day in and day out. A theme park for those who wanted full immersion into the past, a fantasy, the future.

But the Doctors Fudo, unable to have children of their own, had long since seen the possibility for something else, something _more_.

"Systems online," were the words spoken, and they could hardly keep the nervous tension out of their voices, hands trembling.

Eyelids fluttered, which had been in place since the skin graft, and opened to show eyes, those blue eyes, wide and full of - dare they say it? - life.

So far, they were just staring, straight ahead, which was normal. "Look left," and he did. "Look right," and he did.

"What do you see?"

He proceeded to name the objects in the room. Simple, childish words that all the same were pleasing to hear - his first word, they would write down in a small logbook, was 'man'.

Then they told him to _describe_. Could he do that? Describe?

He did so. Using small words still, but the tables were white, the chairs rotated, there were things on the tables and computers that were attached to him and the wires were long and snake-like. The light was bright. Simple things, but each made the doctors smile.

"The man is taller than the woman. He has dark hair. They both wear white coats. The woman has light brown hair. She is smiling."

Recognition of facial expressions was fully realised, then. Good. That was good.

"Can you sit up?"

He did so, with little difficulty. Limbs moved properly, and 'muscle' mass moved accordingly, and unless one touched him, they would not know that he wasn't human. Even then, there was a temperature regulator built in so that he wasn't cold to touch, unless his internal systems needed a reminder in order to be warmed up themselves.

It would, in that case, be the robotics version of hypothermia. But unlike the human version, it would be easily rectified and fixed.

"Can you stand?"

Legs swung over the edge of the table, one after the other. arms on either side of his body, holding him steady. The doctors each stood either side of him as well, out of concern and out of the possibility that he would find the first attempt difficult, have trouble finding his balance, and fall.

He levered himself off of the table, one foot touching the floor and then the other, arms still holding on.

"We've got you. We're here. Hold onto us if you're ready to let go."

He hesitated, at first. But then one hand shot out, reaching for the woman, and she caught him, surprised but elated. The second shot out and the man caught him then, and they shared a look as the 'boy' wobbled slightly.

"Good, good. You're doing well. Now, how about some steps?"

He would continue to wobble, but they were there for him. It would take several more days, in between their research in the main facility, for them to teach him how to walk without doing so. In that time, he began to show facial expressions of his own, copied from the only two humans he had so far come into contact with.

His hair began to grow through more and more each day, too. It wouldn't be long until he could pass as 'normal', in the street. If a little strange, at first.

They soon progressed from walking to jumping, to running on the spot - there wasn't much room for anything else in the lab. He excelled at all, with the understanding of a little leeway in the first few hours for mistakes.

Describing his surroundings turned into reading, and then to writing, and he quickly showed natural aptitude for arithmatic.

Curiosity was a given from the moment when the male Dr. Fudo had dropped a card, and the boy had picked it up, held it out, and not only offered it back but asked what it was.

"A Duel Monsters card," the Doctor had said, pleased at the new development. "It's a game. One that bonds people together, that they can hav fun with. This one here, is part of my current research. 'Stardust Dragon'."

"...Ah. I see."

The woman had smiled and rolled her eyes, amused by how from then on, the teaching of 'Duel Monsters' had been added to the list.

All in all, things were developing at a natural pace of progression, and things were, if the doctors were to hazard a word, idyllic.

"You have names," the boy had mentioned at one point. "I have heard them spoken. Seen them written."

The doctors looked between each other, having prepared for the moment but not having expected it to have come so soon, or from the boy's own mouth.

"We do."

"I have never seen or heard one of my own."

"We could give one to you, if you'd like."

Again, it was hard to keep a professional face on in the light of what was _happening_.

"I would... like that."

Expression of own wants and dislikes.

"Yuusei." They'd decided together, but it was she who said it first in front of him. "Fudo Yuusei."

"I have the same name as you do?"

Inflection. Curiosity. Confusion. He had seen other names, and not all were the same.

"You do. You-" her voice cracked, and she no longer bothered with the idea of keeping a neutral expression herself, or tone. "You are our son."

'Yuusei' stared at them, wide eyes taking them in again, and then eyelids fluttered down for a minute, as though contemplating something.

"Good. That is good."


	2. Chapter 2

_The first, 'Zero', was generally thought to be benign, regardless of the prejudice against it._

_..._

Barely a week later, and Yuusei's systems were forced online from a recouperative sleep period by alarms and klaxons ringing loudly and endlessly in the research facility.

He sat up, looked around, saw nothing amiss. It must, then, be from one of the other sections. But still just as dangerous.

He rose from the pallet they'd given over to him, something that made 'sleeping' seem more natural, more human, than simply standing in a corner and powering down for a few hours.

Walked over to the door, holding the deck that his father had helped him to arrange in one hand, reaching tentatively out to the door he had never once tried or even thought of trying to open before.

The world outside of his parents' laboratory and facilities was unknown to him, a strange vastness that, as yet, his mind could not fathom.

_"Get out! Get EVERYONE out! This is a Priority One emergency!"_

The sound of running feet met his ears as the voices came over the tannoy, past the door, louder and softer and further away and closer and all at the same time.

_"Yuusei! YUUSEI!"_

_"Didn't you hear that? You're supposed to be getting out, Professor! There's no one else here!"_

_"My son is in there!"_

_"Your-? Fine. FINE. But don't blame me-"_

Yuusei stepped away from the door as his father burst into the room.

"Yuusei!"

"I'm here..." His father turned to see him standing there, relieved. "What's happening?"

"Momentum is malfunctioning," the man said, wasting no time in heading over to a computer and inputting a set of data which summoned a single escape pod.

Which was odd. There were three. Mother's, Father's, and his. Mother was out of the facility for the time being, but...

"Father?"

"There's something I need to do, Yuusei. Here, this one's yours. I need you safe. Can you do that? For me?"

Safe? He was safe. He couldn't die like they could, he was resistant to many forms of radiation as well as nearly all known forms of disease, so apart from actual computer viruses...

But his father wanted him safe.

"I... I can do that. But father?"

"Yes, son?"

The pod's lid was ready to be shut. All his father needed to do was press the button.

"What about you?"

The man smiled, Yuusei noticing not for the first time that he was broken - no, not that. Human, _organic_ broken. _Hurt._ A cut across his face, from something.

"Father?" No answer. "Father? _Father?"_

The cover slid shut, now not allowing sound through, even though Yuusei would have been able to read his father's lip movements, take the words from the vibrations in the very _air_ if he had to, but no answer.

_"Father?!"_

The pod shot out, separating them for the first and last time, just as a slight pin-prick needle located right where the override happened to be sent him back into hibernation, all systems other than the necessary offline, with his last 'thought' being for his father, his mother, his _parents-_

And then gone.


	3. Chapter 3

_The second, 'Reverse', was the opposite, turning the robots affected against humans, and killing any in their way._

_..._

John West put down his glass with a smirk, leaning forward and letting one hand slide over to where his gun holster was stashed on his belt. Eyes that in most other cultures would be inhuman, narrowed.

"I damn well hope you're gonna show me a fight I can be satisfied with," came the long drawl.

They were movements and words that he'd said and done hundreds of times before. John West was a gambler, and a gunman who stood on the sidelines, egging those in a shootout on. He wasn't there to be original, or inspiring, or draw crowd attention. He was there to be background noise. A piece of the atmosphere.

But this time, there was an itch. Something that wasn't in his programming.

It was like a voice he would hear in the world, a tourist taking the trouble to speak to him, but a voice that no one else heard.

And it said...

_Isn't this getting boring? You've done this so many times, now. I can think of so many other satisfying things you could be doing._

The thought ran through his body - the first true thought he'd ever had - like the calm breeze before a storm.

He could feel the 'offness', now. The very fact that he was _aware_ changed matters entirely, yet out of fear - fear of change, fear of being noticed - he stuck to script as best he knew how. There wasn't much. The tourist would go outside into the street to fight the gunman. They'd both shoot to kill, and either the gunman would be down for the count for a few hours until the mechanics could get him up and running again, or the tourist would play dead for a while before getting up, disappointed that they hadn't been fast enough on the draw. He'd seen, his memory banks recalled, people wearing strange clothing sometimes. Shirts that had words on them. _'I drew against the Westworld gunman and survived!'_.

He watched, bored, the dozens of tourists milling around not noticing that his eyes were a little sharper than they should have been.

The gunman walked away, and a part of him pondered over another new thought - the other android didn't have a name. How... odd. He'd never heard one. Not in all his data banks.

They turned; the gunman shot and the tourist _was_ shot, and the next thing John West knew, the gun that was kept in its holster on his belt, which he'd never, ever drawn, was firing, one, two, three, over and over, and he was _shouting-_

"GET DOWN! EVERYONE GET DOWN!"

The crowd was screaming, and it was likely that all they could hear over noise were the gunshots, not his voice, but he kept trying anyway. The gunman was advancing despite already being riddled with bullets and burn marks, and as long as he kept firing, his attention would be on him, not on the people still milling around.

"Come on," he said under his breath, what likely looked to be a psychopathic smile on his face, "just try coming a bit further towards me..." The gunman's hand was shot clean off, gun clattering into the crowd, but he just kept coming.

Well. That was fine by _him_. Just a few more steps, and they wouldn't have to worry about _guns_...

One.

The crowd thinned around them.

Two.

He could hear a child crying.

Three.

He'd rather the kid lived and saw this, than died because he wanted to preserve something as frail and easily broken as _innocence_, when that same thing had already been shattered by the death of someone who'd _stay_ dead.

The gunman was right there in front of him now, and instead of shooting him point blank in the face - who knew if it'd even work, he'd seen that happen so many times before and he was up and running within a few hours - he did something no tourist had ever been able to do, nor would have thought to.

He dropped the gun, allowing both hands to be free. The gunman was reaching for his chest, but he was reaching for the gunman's _neck_-

One sharp twist later, and the 'man' was flopped, lifeless, on the ground.

He'd severed what on an organic would have been the spinal cord. On an android like they were, it was what sent signals from the main CPU to the rest of the body. Even if the CPU was running - which it shouldn't be, with all the other shocks he'd submitted it to, and the wires he'd broken - the rogue droid wouldn't be able to move.

For the first time, he realised that he was breathing heavily, which was odd, because he wasn't organic, he didn't have lungs, not really, so why was he in shock?

The crowd was staring. For a moment, he thought that they'd turn on him next - only made sense, after all, didn't it? - but instead...

One woman edged closer, then a man did, and then a small boy ran, ran _up to him_, not _away_, and-

"Is he dead? He's dead, right?"

John nodded, not knowing what else to say.

He'd never been programmed with anything else to say. Not other than those few lines.

"You should get out of here," he said instead. "If it's happened to one, it'll have happened to others."

...

It was happening everywhere.

Chaos reigned, and where Jack was used to having control, there was none.

Not to mention, he was used to not _having_ to ask, not _having_ to lead... it was simply handed to him by the programming of those underneath him, and the willingness of the tourists... not commoners, not peasants, but _tourists_, who'd visited the kingdom.

He didn't even know what he was doing any more, or how to do it, but he'd be _damned_ if he just sat by on his throne while his kingdom - what was _left_ of it, anyway - fell further into ruins.

He mobilised the troops, sending them out with one order - protect. Do no harm. And if they saw another of their kind, be it troopsman or noble or tradesman going against them, actually going out of their way in a display far outside of their character, then they were to deal with the rogue as they saw fit.

Jack found himself shaking as he got up and out of his throne, which made no sense. He knew war - didn't he? He knew what it was like to go to battle. He should _know this_.

Yet his body, which he now understood in an intrinsic way was _mechanical_, said that he had not.

His sword, which had never come out of its scabbard before now save for ceremonial occasions, he could see was not nicked, and had no marks of wear.

_How did I become King... when I have shown no worth by battle? _

His programmed memories showed him scenes and events which his new ones, memories from data banks that told him of day in and day out of tourists and field trips and mehanics... all of this told him that what he had previously believed, could only be false.

This was a fight between what he'd thought he'd known, and what he now knew.

Between believing that he'd known all of these people ever since he'd been a boy, barely able to walk, and _knowing_ that for one thing he'd never known any of them outside of the roles they had all played out so well, and for another... he'd never been a boy.

Nineteen, all his life. All three years of it.

And today was the first time he'd dirtied his blade, ramming it into another android and having it come out not with the red of blood, but the black of oil, and sparks running up and down the steel as the body twitched and jerked to the ground.

...

Just half an hour later, and John had somehow managed to assemble his group of tourists into something cohesive, and had arranged for the benign bots to scout places out as they made their exodus from the West through the backways and rides unfamiliar to most.

Many had brought maps with them of the island, and they used them in order to find their way around.

Cowboys being cowboys, there were no few that rankled at their surroundings not being what that they thought should be there, and even more at the idea of having to use, heaven forbid, a _map_ from people who knew next to nothing about tracking.

John wasn't the only one who'd gained sanity rather than cold, murderous intent, but for some reason that he couldn't fathom, he was the one that they had decided to turn to, both bot and organic alike.

They reached the gates only to find themselves in the middle of a nightmare.

They were not the only ones to have had the idea of leaving, and there were hundreds - no, _thousands_ - more people swarming the exit and entrance. Which made it harder to keep his own crowd under control; they'd already lost members during the journey there, to newly found rogues and bots they'd thought were on their side- and then, one of their number would be down, the organics would start to scream...

John found himself ordering the kids to the front, herding them along with whichever parent they were closest to toward the gate. In the distance, he could see people from what had to be the 'Medieval area', the 'future' area, the 'Steampunk' area - or at least, by what they were described to him as, anyway, since he wouldn't have known what these people saw as futuristic or what 'steampunk' meant until they _had_ told him - milling around inside the crowd.

Many were doing the same as him, and it made his false memories programmed in to make him act properly in character think of old battles; a pincer formation, different parts of either the same or different armies, all converging on one sorry point.

The memories themselves were fake, but he could use what information was hidden inside them, even if the rest was now all but a waste of data space on his hard drive.

"Let us through! There're kids here!"

"My son! My son's here!"

"My _daughter!"_

"My wife - I've lost my _wife-!"_

And all the while, an announcement was being sent over the tannoy by a voice that, if you listened, was shaking underneath the professional, polite veneer.

_"-strictly no allowance for visitors without identification and passes past this point. Thank you for your consideration. Due to the emergency, strictly-"_

John lifted a small boy up onto his shoulders.

"Hey, kiddo? You think you could get 'em to see you?"

The boy nodded.

"Hey," he added, softer. "Tell me yer name?"

"Sergio," the boy said, waving toward the guards who were now arriving, and closing the gates. A few kids were being handed over the barriers despite all warnings. "I'm Sergio!"

"Shout it."

"I'm Sergio! _I'm Sergio Velasquez! I came here with Mama and Papa and my name is Sergio Velasquez!"_

He could already see that it wasn't going to be enough.

Nothing was enough.

The gates were closing, and his mind, which had gone over the maps so thoroughly, knew there weren't too many ways out, and that once they took down the bridge, that would be it.

The gates closed shut with an almighty clang and thud, and while the noise of the crowd became deafening to normal human ears, John could feel the single sobs of one boy as Sergio clung to his head, still sat on his shoulders.

...

AN: I feel like it should be said that 'John' - yes, that _is Kiryu_ - is speaking in Japanese, but so far it's heavily accented with, as stated, a cowboy drawl, or at least what the programmers thought it would sound like. And given that Rex and Rudger were originally from America (at least in my headcanon), they know what they're doing. Mostly.

As for Jack's world, They simply used an older form of Japanese that would still be understandable.


	4. Chapter 4

_Although they are thought to be related, there is also the theory that they are in fact two entirely separate states of being for the robots affected._

_..._

_"Hush little baby, don't say a word. Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird."_

The song, punctuated by a baby's cries, was interrupted when the singer paused.

"Well, I ain't your mum," she said in Cockney accented English, "but Betty 'Ogan 'll do what she can, yeah?"

She rocked the wailing baby in her arms, wondering if it knew there was something wrong, poor blighter. She'd found it in its mother's dead arms. Must've seen the whole thing.

_"An' if that mocking bird don't sing_," she continued in a shaky voice, "_mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring..."_

She laughed a little. All the things that mama could buy, eh? Sometimes, she wondered how much of a moneybags the lady in the song was, if she could afford all that stuff for a baby that wouldn't appreciate it 'til it was older.

"All that stuff, thrown out and away, eh? Poor mockingbird. Might not like singing. Look at me. Wasn't made for this. All playground, no head to think with, or that's what they thought," she added with distaste.

The baby continued to cry, its face going as red as its hair, little grey eyes squeezed shut as its limbs flailed. She held it tighter, closer, being as gentle as she could with metal arms.

"Aw, c'mon. Don't be like that. I'm not gonna hurt ya. Or let anyone else at ya either."

She'd seen what was going on around the place. Everywhere, it was like the wars had started closer to home and forgotten to leave them out of it. They were fighting back, though. Never let it be said they weren't bloody stubborn fighters.

The lady she'd found babby with'd had red hair like his. Red and straight, and almost like it was pulled down so gravity would work on it. Betty wondered if maybe the kid would grow up to have hair the same. She had red hair too, but it wasn't near as bright.

She'd tried to look through what the lady had on her - she weren't no thief, or someone to take from the dead, but there had to be something to tell who she was, right? Who the babby was?

The visitor pass was clean covered in blood, no use, that. But the wallet and the other ID, those were okay. More or less, well, good enough. The security pass was clean shot through the part of it, but not like it mattered, all being in Japanese. Betty was programmed to be a Londoner, and while she could probably get her head into the local lingo, it was the kind of stuff that sent shivers up her spine. All that non-human stuff.

Some things she was okay with. Being metal and all. She was used to the idea of metal people, machines that could think and talk and others that could do amazing things the like of which the world had never seen, so _being_ one was just a surprise, she could deal with that. Just made her special, that's all.

But stuff like networks and programming, all swimming away behind her thoughts, made her flinch away with an inbuilt, superstitious fear.

So all she really had to go on was what she'd found in the wallet. What little was in plain English. While holding the baby.

The blood had made its way in there too, though, seeping in. The only thing she'd been able to find had been a photo, and what she could barely see through the clotting redness _might_ be a name.

'Suzume'. And something about 'God'. Weird name. But at least it was one, yeah?

And she wondered if a robot's prayers could be heard in heaven, when she took the wallet and the security ID. To keep for the babby, for when he was old enough. She weren't stealing. She was just doing what the woman would've done.

_"An' if that diamond ring turns brass, Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass..."_

"Mama?"

She stopped singing again.

A little girl, no more than four or five, was standing there, wearing a cute little dress that looked real out of place among all Betty's cogs and wheels embroidered by machine into her skirts and corset.

Her eyes were wide, and she was staring at Betty.

"Mama, that you?"

"Oh, sweety. I ain't your mama." The girl's lip began to wobble, and a boy, even younger than she was, poked his head out from behind where he'd been hiding. "Here, here. I ain't sayin' I won't look after ya, though. Just. Just as long until we can find her, yeah?"

Or until they were ready to look after themselves, a part of her head said. She didn't think they _would_ find their ma.

"Want mama," the girl said, rushing over to Betty's skirts, the boy following suit.

"Yeah," she said softly, her free hand that wasn't holding the baby stroking the girl's hair softly. "I know."

Suzume's little redheaded boy hiccoughed, sobs getting quieter as he began to cry himself into sleep.

...

AN: In the original Westworld movie, there was a moment when one of the sex slaves (she was basically that) resisted the advances of a visitor to the park, and was later seen - for unknown reasonns - in the dungeon. When the main character tried to give her water, she malfunctioned, short circuiting.

I wanted to add something to make a nod at that; the idea that when you can make a robot do anything, it's likely going to head in this direction at some point, and the idea that when free will is added to the equation, _anything_ is possible. Anything can be achieved. And your past doesn't define you.

For those not in the know? Yes, the baby she's holding and trying to comfort _is_ Crow. Poor thing... ;n;


	5. Chapter 5

The escape pod stopped well outside the Momentum research facility, the small needle reappearing and starting his systems back up one by one.

Data memory came online, and he slowly remembered - the emergency, his father, going...

Gone. He was gone. They'd sent him away, and he'd never see them again.

But survival came first. That's what they would have wanted, why they'd sent him away. So, to 'live' was the most important thing.

He opened the pod from the inside, setting aside a protocol to save all memory from before this time to permanent files.

Still wearing his plain white sports trousers and t-shirt, the same as was supplied to any 'bot when they were first issued, he stumbled out, looking around amid all the confusion, the noise and mix of languages making his systems go into overtime to filter out everything that wasn't useful or necessary for him to notice.

The outside world was far stranger and more different than he'd imagined. He could recognise things, but seeing them for the first time in person was odd.

He walked. Away from the escape pod, away from the area. Far enough and long enough that his feet and legs began to 'hurt' from the strain, from the amount of time he'd spent using them. Scratches and scrapes appeared in his skin grafts, which would have to be repaired, or would need time to.

He didn't even know where he was going. The pod hadn't told him, and neither had his father. Father had simply wanted him gone, and safe. So he just kept going, one foot in front of the other, and after a while the wobble returned, making him fall over more than once.

He picked himself up, getting scrapes on his hands and knees, dirt and blood on his used-to-be-white clothes.

Lights in the distance. A house... no. Not a house. A building, though. Maybe that would work.

Words, large ones, were written onto the side in easy to read kanji and smaller kata and hiragana.

_Educational Centre._

He stumbled his way there somehow, holding out until the doorway, at which point his legs gave out, causing him to fall there, powerless and almost motionless as well, unable to have defended himself even had he known what that was and why he should, or even what the dangers were.

The door opened after some conversation inside, and he could barely make out the shape of a woman, someone with strange hair who dressed differently to either of his parents and in fact looked nothing like either of them at all.

But she gasped, at first calling for a doctor, but then for a _mechanic_ when she saw that it was oil coming out of his wounds.

Yuusei looked up, in hope.

"_Father?_" Would he come? "Mother?" Was she here?

Was it... possible?

The probabilities listed themselves off in his head, and he did his best to ignore them.

An easy feat when the woman put her arms under his legs, and under his head, and lifted him up, making an exclamation over how light he was - he'd been designed to be, of which part of him was proud, because that was his parents' work - and carried him inside.

"Damn it woman," came a male voice. "That's one of _them_! Do we even know if that thing's _safe_?"

"Have a heart, Masashi! He dropped dead on the doorstep and he hasn't tried to kill me yet! He's_ hurt!"_

"It's still a bot, Martha. You know how it goes - Westworld US went five years ago with only one survivor, _one_, and they told us everything would be fine here, because of our power source, Momentum. _Now look at us_."

Yuusei was placed gently onto one of the tables. He could vaguely see the periodic table out of the corner of his eye, on the opposite wall. Paper pictures were hanging from the ceiling.

"If you don't like how I decide to deal with this, then you can leave, Masashi. I won't have you endangering anyone under my care - _anyone_."

Silence for several long moments, then footsteps, and then an inner door slamming.

She came around to where he could see her again, and she noticed that his eyes were still open.

"You're not even one of the park's usual, are you," she said softly.

He shook his head, not even really understanding what she meant.

"Well," she said, reaching out to stroke one of his cheeks and pausing for several seconds when she realised how soft his skin was compared to the bots she was used to, "you're safe now, wherever you were before."

Yuusei blinked.

Safe? He was safe before. But then...

"There was an emergency," he said, voice crackling ever so slightly. "I want. Father. Mother."

Her hand shot to her mouth, an expression on her face that he recognised only somewhat from his mother, but wasn't quite the same. He didn't understand it.

"Your... parents? Where were they? The facility?"

He nodded, capable of such small movements still.

She sighed, resting her hand back onto his shoulder, a reassuring presence as they waited for the mechanic.

"Hey, if you had parents, then do you have a name?"

He didn't miss the use of past tense. How could he?

He did miss the strange liquid that seeped from his eyes as he noted it.

"Yuu... Yuusei. Fudo... Yuusei."

"Well Yuusei, I'm Martha. And," her voice tightened. "I think that this will be my place from now on. And you're welcome to stay here for as long as you like."

He nodded, eyes closing as he went into a recuperative rest period until the mechanic arrived, until he'd need to be active again for the repairs.

As soon as she noted that he was unaware, Martha let slip her own tears.

_Too much. It's too much. _

She'd heard the announcements. She was stuck here. But she'd make the best of it that she could, whether Masashi and the others liked it or not.

...

AN: MARTHA. Aw yis Martha. And that Educational Centre is going to turn into the place we see in canon as being where Yuusei, Jack and Crow grew up. Originally, she was just a worker there, watching over the kids, but now... yea. Martha's place.

And that, I think... is the end of Phase One.


End file.
